Letters to the Editor: Faith in Mayor Breed

Micheal Greer, who was on the platform with Oscar Grant, hugs Grants daughter, Tatiana Grant, at the BART Fruitvale Station during a vigil on the 10 year anniversary of Oscar Grants death in Oakland, Calif., on Tuesday, January 1, 2019. Grant III, 22, was fatally shot by a BART police officer during the early hours of New Years Day a decade ago.

Photo: Yalonda M James / The Chronicle

Every family has a right to pull every string, turn over every stone and do whatever the family feels is best to help a family member in trouble. Mayor London Breed was using whatever pull she thought she might have when she used her title when seeking her brother’s early release. It was not a power play as some believe. It was love. San Francisco, we learned something about our mayor most did not know.

I’m OK with it. Life is not always easy. Things happen and we continue moving forward anyway. Breed is a smart, engaged and accomplished leader in our city. I believe the continued leadership she brings into the new year will prove why we put our civic faith in Breed.

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Regarding “Correcting course on cannabis” (Editorial, Jan. 2): How can this newspaper state that legalizing cannabis was the right choice for public opinion and public health?

I understand that a certain segment of our population with chronic illnesses can benefit from medical marijuana, and why using cannabis needed to be decriminalized. However, those of us who are raising children or are pedestrians concerned about drivers operating vehicles while under the influence of pot might disagree with The Chronicle’s overly broad statement.

My respectful message to pot smokers in California is this: Although you are legally entitled to buy and use marijuana, please be responsible. Don’t smoke around young children who can be adversely affected by secondhand smoke, and please don’t drive a car if your judgment is even slightly impaired.

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Lack of justice in wake of Oscar Grant

Regarding “10-year vigil stresses Oscar Grant’s legacy” (Page 1, Jan. 2): One sad legacy of this tragedy is that very few police officers who face trial for shooting deaths, like Johannes Mehserle (who shot Oscar Grant), are convicted of murder. Mehserle was instead convicted of involuntary manslaughter, served only 11 months in jail, and Grant’s father was denied monetary damages in a federal civil case where a ruling called the shooting accidental. Ten years after Oscar Grant’s death, young men of color are still disproportionately targeted by law enforcement, and the families of those who are shot dead by police rarely receive justice.

Felicia Charles, Millbrae

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Herman Rivera, San Jose

In need of leader

Regarding “Why Trump won” (Letters, Jan. 2): As a Democrat, I appreciate the author’s letter to the editor explaining why President Trump has won. His points are valid. But we need a leader with character, one we can be proud of. What does it tell our children that a morally bankrupt, corrupt, pathological liar is the leader we should admire?

Fredrica Greene, Tiburon

The good news

Concerning “Recalling 12 tumultuous months” (Insight, Dec. 30): Couldn’t The Chronicle, when looking back at 2018, have also included some positive news events that occurred?

The Winter Olympics in South Korea in February 2018 had many feel-good stories, including the performances of out gay athletes like Adam Rippon and Gus Kenworthy. The World Health Organization created an inexpensive vaccine that will help eradicate cholera. There was a noticeable decrease in crime across the U.S. and, more locally, a Good Samaritan returned a lost purse to a woman in Petaluma on Halloween.

These examples are not meant to sugarcoat the awful acts of gun violence in places like Parkland, Fla.; losses of life and property in California’s wildfires; or the tragic separation of young children from their migrant parents at our nation’s southern border that characterized this year. But as we venture into 2019, it would help our sagging spirits to acknowledge a few of the good things that occurred in 2018.

Donna Delvecchio, Santa Clara

Innovative housing

San Francisco faces a big drop in new home building because costs have skyrocketed from rising costs and government fees and regulations. When we can no longer afford to build affordable housing for our own people, we have truly reached a crossroads in our civilization.

Will homelessness now become the norm for more and more people living in squalor on our streets and in our public places?

Solutions can range from relocating to regions of the country where housing costs are much lower, or developing radical new types of housing manufactured with 3-D printers or other innovative new technology.

If computers can be reduced in cost to a fraction of what they once were, why can’t we innovate in the building of housing? New building codes are needed to allow housing from re-purposed shipping containers or other alternatives such as tiny houses in backyards of single-family homes.

Buildings can also be converted from retail or warehouse space into efficiency units, which, given the decline in retail stores, are readily available as people order online instead of shop locally.

What we can’t do is continue with the same approaches that have led us to this point.

Nick Yale, Oakland

‘Trumpo’ currency

Concerning “Euro is 20, and still a work in progress” (Business, Jan. 1): So 2019 marks the 20th anniversary of the euro, a common European Union currency which has decreased tariffs and increased trade? Well here in the U.S., we’re about to begin year three of a currency backed by a government which has increased tariffs, decreased trade and hurt important businesses like agriculture and the steel industry. It’s called the “Trumpo.”